


Everything Was Blue

by AsagiStilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cotton Candy, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5168075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsagiStilinski/pseuds/AsagiStilinski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You give me something that- were it not for my being a werewolf- would have probably given me cavities and diabetes by now... because I like it?"</p><p>"Yes," Stiles replied with a dumb-founded huff</p><p> </p><p>Derek likes blue cotton candy, Stiles likes Derek, the answer seems simple, the emotions aren't</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Was Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I completely forgot I had written this over a month ago! I was in a Derek Deserves Nice Things mood and this... thing... happened
> 
>  
> 
> And also Halsey

Derek likes cotton candy

It's really not something he advertises or even readily admits to and it isn't like it's some weird, absolute obsession or anything

It's just that.. well... he likes cotton candy

Especially blue cotton candy, for some reason that just always seemed better

He hasn't had it since he was fifteen

He was alright with that, it was more or less expected, who WOULD get the opportunity to eat cotton candy when running for their life?

So maybe the first time it happened he was ... unprepared

He hadn't really thought of the zoo as a place to buy cotton candy but sure enough, leave it to Stiles to scope it out

"You want some?"

Derek startled at the voice and turned around, staring in surprise at the bag full of pink fluffy sugar the spark was holding

"Dude.. please tell me you know what cotton candy is... please tell me your life isn't THAT bad," Stiles said slowly

He inhaled deeply and spoke

"I know what cotton candy is Stiles, I had a childhood," he grumbled lowly

Stiles quirked an eyebrow up, slowly withdrawing his fingers from the bag and holding it out towards Derek

"So.... you want some....?" he repeated slowly

A part of Derek, a very big part, wanted to say "No", turn his back, and keep walking towards the flamingos

Another part, a much smaller part, a part that was still somehow young despite all of the age his forced maturity had caused him, wanted to take the entire bag and lick the stuff off his fingers until his hands were sticky and covered in residual pink dye

He stood for a moment, conflicted, before Stiles seemed to make the choice for him

"C'mon, I don't have cooties or anything, just live on the wild side for once and ruin your dinner- not that this WILL ruin your dinner, it actually isn't filling at all, I have no idea why people seem to threaten people with that since stuff like cotton candy actually won't ruin your appetite because it's like eating air but... just take some Derek,"

Without even thinking about it Derek reached into the bag, pinched his fingers around a clump of pink and balled it into his mouth

Part of him, a small part, regretted it immediately because now his fingers were sticky and covered in 90% cotton candy goo, 10% Stiles' saliva because that particular peice had been _wet_...

But another part of him, a much bigger part, was insanely, unreasonably happy about his life choices right now

The taste of the cotton candy slammed memories back into him of state fairs and carnivals and fighting with Laura over the last pinch and arguing with his mom about how two bags was TOTALLY reasonable and he would NOT get "sugared up" by having his own bag of it and no Mom EW don't wipe his face...

Cotton candy was much more than just a sweet taste now

It was a taste of something that once was and would never be again

It was a bittersweet taste

And that part sank like a hard brick in his stomach and he had to choke back his misery and wordlessly lead Stiles towards the flamingos

~+~

If someone were ever to think that Stiles was so unobservant that he hadn't seen the way Derek's face lit up the moment he tasted that cotton candy, that someone would be dreadfully wrong

His eyes had practically sparkled and Stiles knew, ok?

Stiles knew that Derek couldn't just LET himself have good things

He had gotten better after getting out of Beacon Hills for a few- several- months but he was still pretty far from a place that was so emotionally healthy that he could ask for something he wanted

That would take time, and it would take care, and Stiles was 100000% down with being the one to provide that care, even if he wasn't quite in a place where he could just come out and admit it yet

Well, not to Derek anyway

Scott may or may not have gotten an ear full of it the other day but he couldn't stop himself after seeing the happiness on Derek's face just from cotton candy

Stiles wondered in the back of his mind if it was JUST the cotton candy that made Derek so happy or if it was just all sweet things, but he knew better than to experiment with a sure thing

Especially right now when he was skating on such thin ice on the topic of finding something that made Derek unreasonably happy

So he went by the store on his way to Derek's new apartment one day- he had ditched the loft after he came back, kept the building, just... didn't, couldn't, live in it anymore- and bought two bags of cotton candy, just in case

~+~

"Here,"

Stiles had been at the apartment for twenty minutes now and suddenly Derek found a bag of cotton candy being tossed towards him

"What is this?" he frowned suspiciously

"A snack, see? I have one too," he shrugged back, dangling his own bag in front of Derek and setting it down as he went back to his laptop

"Why did you bring this? You've never brought snacks before," he pointed out

"Yes and I recently decided that THAT has been a terrible choice on my part because quite obviously we should be eating something if we're going to be researching for so long straight,"

"So... your go to energy booster is artificial sugar and a red dye variant?"

He didn't believe that for a second

Stiles was a bit of a health nut, not so much for himself but for other people

It was actually a little bizarre, Stiles took care of the people around him in every way that he could but utterly refused to take care of himself in any way

But regardless, Stiles was a health nut, even if he didn't treat his body with so much as a sliver of respect he certainly wasn't stupid and would never bring something as disastrously unhealthy and senseless as cotton candy as a sort of energy or health boost for either of them, especially not for Derek

He half expected Stiles' idea of a good snack to be carrot sticks to be honest... for other people, atleast, for him it was probably some sort of chip

"No, it's a long story, I'll bring something better next time, just eat it," he shrugged back

Derek didn't move- not so much as a twitch

Stiles' heart didn't skip a beat but something about it all just seemed so off

Ofcourse everything sort of seemed off because no matter how much nostalgia researching the new creature in town together brought things weren't the same as they were back then

They never would be

And then Stiles, with an apparent huff of frustration, tore open his bag of cotton candy and stuffed a big pinch full into his mouth

It was a challenge

It was a clear and blatant challenge

So Derek, being entirely unable to resist a challenge, tore open his bag and tugged a peice off of his too, stuffing it in his cheeks with a slight glare

He was half-way through the bag before he even realized that he wasn't even sure what this challenge was or why he was participating in it

Stiles had abandoned his cotton candy after the first bite

~+~

For five months Stiles had slowly been gathering intelligence on Derek and has been supplying him here and there with cotton candy

In the sixth month he and Derek finally stopped beating around the bush and confessed their undying love to eachother

In the seventh month there was blue cotton candy

~+~

Stiles could have been wrong, ofcourse, it was always possible that he was completely wrong

But he didn't think.... he didn't think this was a subject that he would be wrong in...

He had spent so much time and energy and just... you know... STUFF... figuring out what it was about cotton candy that Derek seemed to like most so that he could more or less settle it with himself

Now Derek was staring at the bag of blue cotton candy like it was a demon ready to drag his soul out of his body and plunge him into the deepest pits of hell

"It isn't going to bite you," Stiles observed with a sigh and a lick of his lips

Derek reached forward, plucking at it slightly and pinching his brows together

"I... how did you...?"

"Oh um... I saw you looking at it the other day, at the fair, when that kid got a big stick of it? I thought.. maybe you wanted some," he replied with a slight shrug

He didn't say "You could have just asked for it" or "Why didn't you tell me you wanted some?" or anything like that

He was far wiser than that, he knew that to Derek, asking for something was a huge deal, even simple things, and cotton candy- as strange as it may be- was obviously somehow pretty important to him

That, Stiles figured, must have made it even harder

"Thanks," Derek said quietly, slowly reaching out and taking the bag, almost as if he were about to check it for predators, before opening the bag and holding it out to Stiles

"Do you want some?"

Stiles smiled fondly, reaching out and pinching a tuft of soft sugary confection from the bag before rolling it up and popping it into his mouth

"Why do you keep bringing me this?" Derek finally asked a moment later

"What? The cotton candy?"

He gave a quick series of nods and Stiles stared at him with complete seriousness when he replied

"Because you want it,"

Derek blinked, appearing confused by the accusation

"Because you like it and you want it and it makes you happy... I want to make you happy Derek," he explained

Derek looked away, apparently still having trouble believing that

"You give me something that- were it not for my being a werewolf- would have probably given me cavities and diabetes by now... because I like it?"

"Yes," Stiles replied with a dumb-founded huff

"I mean obviously if you WEREN'T a werewolf and therefore WEREN'T immune to human health problems I wouldn't bring it to you nearly as much but you know, your system can fight off the negative effects pretty quickly right?"

Derek just nodded again, apparently not feeling all that confident in the affirmation

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to big guy, I'm no-"

"No, no it isn't that," Derek said quickly, not looking up from the floor

"I just... sorry, it's nothing,"

Stiles narrowed his eyes, clearly not pleased with the blatant lie

"I thought we were going to be honest with eachother Derek,"

"I am being honest, it's really... nothing,"

"It doesn't sound like nothing,"

Stiles tries not to push Derek, he really does, in part because he knows how it feels to be pushed on things that you didn't want to talk about and how much worse it felt when one of those things was ... personal... but he knew also that Derek had a tendency to bottle in everything until his insides tore up from it

Stiles knew what that was like too and given the alternative ...

Sometimes it's better to give him a gentle push

"It isn't... like it's got some specific memory attached to it," he started, fidgeting slightly and wringing his hands

"Ok," Stiles nodded in understanding

"It's just.. it's just a good thing for me, it's... untainted, does that.. make sense?"

"Yes," Stiles confirmed immediately, he knew exactly what Derek was talking about

"I've always liked it.. I just.. now it's more than that, and... you keep giving it to me," he seemed to frown more, lips pursing

"Derek, if you don't like it-"

"No I do," he interrupted immediately

"I just don't really know ... how to handle it I guess... you were giving it to me before we started dating," he pointed out suddenly

"Oh... um-"

"Long before,"

Now Derek seemed to be rather surprised and Stiles bit his lip, shrugging lightly

"Do you really think I only make my boyfreinds happy or something? I.... look, I've been trying to be better for a long time now and I just thought.. you know... you never get to be happy, this could help, so..."

He nodded slowly, staring down at the bag of cotton candy and pinching off a tuft, licking it from his fingers wordlessly

"I understand," he finally said after a moment

Stiles moved a little closer, carefully putting an arm around him and squeezing gently

"Hey... you sure this is alright?"

Derek smiled gently back at him and nodded in agreement

"Yeah, I... I'm positive, it's just new, that's all, but ... I like it,"

Stiles smiled brightly at that, taking a pinch from the cotton candy and pressing it against Derek's lips

"Well I guess I can live with that," he smirked

Derek rolled his eyes but licked the cotton off of Stiles' fingers, keeping his own fingers curled around the spark's wrist a little longer than expressly necessary and leaning in closer

"You can live with me doing nice stuff for you or you can live with the cotton candy?" Stiles teased

Derek smirked, placing his lips against the other's

"I guess you'll just have to find out," he hummed, pressing them closer

"You taste like sugar," Stiles breathed, licking gently at the sweet taste

"Want to see just how correct you are?"

He grinned, wrapping his arms around Derek's neck and pulling him closer as he allowed the kiss to deepen

The sweet taste of sugar ran down pretty deep, apparently


End file.
